Children learn risks of being connected

Monday

Jan 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - Not long ago, Ammon Richards asked his parents for permission to open an account on Facebook. But his parents had other ideas and denied permission to Ammon, 12, and his 9-year-old sister, Micah.

Roger Phillips

STOCKTON - Not long ago, Ammon Richards asked his parents for permission to open an account on Facebook. But his parents had other ideas and denied permission to Ammon, 12, and his 9-year-old sister, Micah.

"We felt like the time wasn't right yet," said George Richards, the children's father.

Ammon said his parents withheld permission "because they can't trust the other people (their children might connect with online)."

"We kept on asking," Ammon said. "But they kept saying the same thing. So I stopped."

Ammon and Micah were among 15 children in their age range who attended a two-hour workshop on Internet safety Sunday afternoon at the Stockton headquarters of the Central California Safety Council.

A wide-ranging conversation led by Tyler Moran, the Safety Council's communications director, touched on everything from the bizarre recent online events surrounding Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o to the possibility that putting embarrassing or inappropriate information about oneself on the Internet could haunt a person years later.

"With a billion people on Facebook, along with Twitter and Instagram, ... it's an opportunity to educate children about what to do if you are going to go onto these websites," Moran said.

A large portion of the discussion focused on using privacy settings on websites to control who can and cannot see photographs, comments and information a social-media user shares with contacts. Using an electronic whiteboard, Moran logged in to the various popular sites and was able to show the children on a large screen how they could set their accounts to protect their privacy.

"Always know who you are communicating with online," Moran said. "It's not a good idea to communicate online with people you don't know."

Moran also advised the children to err on the side of caution before putting anything online they think might be in questionable taste. He reminded the children of one of Twitter's claims, that "what you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly." Careless Internet use, Moran said, includes the risk of doing long-term damage to one's online reputation.

"When you put something online," Moran said, "it's nearly impossible for it to be erased forever. Once it's up there, it's always going to be up there. ... You can be a stupid kid and do dumb things. But you don't want to put it up on the Internet."

The discussion also touched on identity theft, cyber-bullying and geo-tagging - putting posts on social-media sites that identify your location. Moran said his goal wasn't to scare the children, simply to make sure that along with its good points, use of the Internet carries with it certain risks and responsibilities.

Only a few of the children at the workshop said they use Facebook. More said they are Twitter users, and Instagram appeared to be most popular of all. Ammon did say his parents allowed him to open a Twitter account to try, so far unsuccessfully, to make contact with a favorite author. But for now, Ammon and his sister said, their social-media use is mainly limited to a children's site, kidzworld.com.

"There's a chat room," Micah said. "If someone says something bad, they get frozen. If somebody does it again, they get kicked off."